The year is 2004, and Sienna Miller is stomping the streets of Notting Hill in slouchy boots and a frilly white dress—it could be circa 1960 vintage, or something from Phoebe Philo’s spring 2004 collection for Chloé. A hundred or so miles to the west, Kate Moss is backstage at Glastonbury in tiny shorts, a waistcoat, and a studded vintage belt—a cool and loose style soon described as “new bohemian.” (Miller, in her Roberto Cavalli handkerchief dresses, Ossie Clark tops, and coin belts, co-headlines this bill.) Stateside, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen are running around Manhattan wearing sandals and ruffled dresses under T-shirts and hoodies; on the West Coast, Jessica Alba walks the red carpet in a chiffon dress over jeans, with Kate Hudson captured by paparazzi in a breezy white iteration, a fringed suede handbag on her shoulder.
Boho chic, as this phenomenon came to be known, is a lot of things: It’s an undone, laid-back kind of cool, and while some would argue that it’s never exactly gone away (female-helmed labels from Isabel Marant and Ulla Johnson to Zimmermann have been riffing on this vibe for years), two decades after Sienna and Kate and all the rest, it’s back in full force, led by Chloé designer Chemena Kamali.
Kamali’s debut for the house at the fall collections in Paris in February seemed to articulate this nascent yearning for easier, lighter, free-spirited clothes. Kamali spent her formative years as a designer at Chloé—as an intern under Philo and then as a designer for Clare Waight Keller—and her ’70s flouncy hems, shirred necklines, snake necklaces, and wooden clogs (worn by Miller, Liya Kebede, Kiernan Shipka, Georgia May Jagger, Pat Cleveland, and more in the front row) hearkened back to the Chloé that helped define the look of the 2000s.
If the original boho resurgence was fueled by Miller’s vintage- and Ossie Clark–filled wardrobe, the Olsen twins’ grungier, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink twist on the trend—dubbed bobo chic (after the French bourgeois bohème; the closest English term might be Champagne socialist) when its long-strand necklaces, toe rings, and maxi skirts ruled lower Manhattan in the aughts—was all over the fall 2024 runways. Why now?
“I don’t know that I was conscious of this at 21,” Miller said, “but this softness and femininity has historically appeared in moments of political stress and war—for something to take off in the way this did, it has to be hitting the zeitgeist in some way.”
If the early 2000s saw 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and the war in Iraq, today brings wars in Ukraine and Gaza, civil war and humanitarian crises in Sudan and elsewhere, and a crucial election looming in the US. There’s been no shortage of things to react against, whether then or now.
“That style of dressing reminded me of a time in the past that I felt inspired by and connected to,” said Miller. Think 1967’s Summer of Love in San Francisco, or the hippie and anti-war social movements that came to define a generation of thought and style.
In fashion, the early ’70s saw the birth of the “soft look.” Designers—most famously Karl Lagerfeld at Chloé—started to cut their silhouettes flouncier, eliminating linings and padding. In this diaphanous world, gossamer fabrics cut in voluminous proportions took over runways, stages—hello, Stevie Nicks—and, eventually, the streets. Much like its boho-chic reincarnation 30 years later, the look was both freewheeling and irreverent.
This is just what we need, says Kebede, a model and advocate and a mainstay of Philo’s Chloé runways at the height of boho chic. “There are too many rules now,” she says. “Creatives then were more free—they could do crazier things and dream more.” Today’s trends, Kebede thinks, are more prescriptive—Barbiecore or cottagecore come to mind—while boho was unconfined. “Maybe that’s why we’re going back into romanticism and flowy clothes—people want to have more freedom.”
While the first boho-chic revival of the aughts was fueled by vintage, Cherie Balch, of the Canada-based archive and vintage shop Shrimpton Couture, says she hasn’t noticed any recent uptick in requests for boho-inspired looks—yet. “Once we start seeing people on social media wear it, that’s when the requests will come.” Balch says that, when it comes to vintage, those who love the ’70s don’t divert from that look regardless of the runways. “But I foresee a peak if it catches on the street,” she says—adding that because runway prices have been a little steep lately, vintage alternatives are particularly poised for a boom.
Still, much like two decades ago, today’s boho chic is less of a movement and more of a look, a vibe. It’s reactive to an environment, sure—but as it often goes with the things we reinvent and revive, some of the original context can become lost in translation. If these clothes were political in the ’70s, as they were for hippies or second-wave feminists, they’ve become less so in the 21st century. Yes, fashionable girls were looking bohemian and careless a generation ago, but it’s worth remembering that its most visible exponents were also, in many cases, white. “There weren’t a lot of Black people represented, period,” says Kebede, who names Erykah Badu or Lisa Bonet as two overlooked queens of boho. “Today, it’s much more open, thank God,” she says, “so there are more people experimenting.” Kebede points out that our definitions of what’s fashionable have also become more expansive—which applies to aesthetics like boho, too. If the original 20th-century bohemian look was a reflection of a lifestyle and its rebirth was about chasing that feeling, our current reappraisal may simply be about embracing the ease it has historically represented.
“I think there’s this longing for undoneness and freedom and softness and movement, and it’s rooted in the ’70s, when people wanted to free themselves from conventions and traditional lifestyles and sexuality,” Kamali told Vogue’s Mark Holgate ahead of her debut runway show earlier this year, before noting a familiar evolution: “At some point, boho was overdone, and it disappeared.”
Boho chic had become madness, with skirts as tops over jeans, “but it was all done with an irreverence that I miss,” said Miller. “We weren’t self-conscious in the way people are now—and obviously this was pre–social media: It was easier to be an individual.”
The boho chic of today is fueled by the runway, not TikTok. It girls are chasing after other trends (see: quiet luxury), which means that boho exists in a realm that’s far more niche than mainstream. There’s a reason why one can’t pinpoint a singular face of boho today. Sure, there are artists like FKA twigs or models like Paloma Elsesser who embody many aspects of this aspirational ease, but their style is broader and more nuanced than merely boho. The 2024 boho girl is somewhere outside, embracing the warmth and ease of a good silky ruffle and a frilly hem—and the freedom of being messy and chaotic—without anybody watching.
And as for the current revival Kamali is leading at Chloé? “People want to feel that spirit once more,” Kamali said. “They want to live the way they live and define their lives for themselves.”
